Day 1 of the Ramblers Spring Weekend in Cheltenham.
Rendezvous at hotel. One car arrives late; none of them had brought their
directions and the one who claimed that maps werenít necessary because he knew
the way clearly didnít. Sort of who is going on which walk and how to
transport them to appropriate start points in minimum vehicles.

Emerge at Winchcombe, fully equipped and off on A walk. We
once did a coach ramble from here. My memory for walks (even the ones I
havenít led) is such that I soon establish that we are heading off in a
totally different direction. I bore fellow walkers by pointing out how we
returned that day (1998?).

We go through the
grounds of Sudeley Castle and then head south westwards climbing gradually and
picking up the Cotswolds Way. The sun is pleasant but has brought with it a
haziness that means (for example) you cannot see the Cotswolds. We reach the top
and then walk along the scarp edge of the Cotswolds to Belas Knap (a neolithic
burial chamber). I first heard of this many years ago but Iíd never been
before. We all take time to long around. Unfortunately the principal entrance is
in north-facing and in shadow so it doesnít make a great photo.

Carry on along the ridge. Good open views but nothing much
to focus on to get decent photos. Eventually reach Cleeve Common. This is a
lovely area spoilt by a golf course. We walk at length through this. Sadly being
a Friday there are not many golfers to annoy. This does not stop Alan who is
leading the walk from striding straight across one fairway, pointing out that we
were just out of driving range.

Go to trig station to bag a Marilyn (actually I didnít
because I had been here before, not that I had any recollection of the actual
top). Then drop off steeply into Postlip valley. Then we tracked the footpaths
alongside the A46 back to Winchcombe

The long walk of the weekend, 13 miles from Bredon over Bredon
Hill. I have burst out into AE Houseman on a couple of previous occasions in
this log of walks. Oh to hell with it, let's have another go:

In the summertime on Bredon

The bells they sound so
clear

Round both the shires they
ring them

In steeples far and near

A happy noise to hear

Actually although this appears in "A
Shropshire Lad", Bredon is in Worcestershire. Houseman was born nearby and,
in fact, he wrote "A Shropshire Lad" without setting foot in the
county. The second shire in the verse is Gloucestershire. But, enough of poetry,
back to the walking.

We parked near the Avon in Bredon and took the
track up the valley before crossing the railway and heading for Bredon's
Norton.From the village we started to climb the hill proper, a long pull up
through Norton Park. We did have a drink stop with views across the Severn
Valley to the Cotswolds. The distant views were much clearer than the previous
day. It wasn't far from this stop to the main ridge of the hill (a fairly
broad one) and we had a long section of easy walking over the top and descending
gentling. Bredon is an outlier of the Cotswolds and it has the same steep scarp
edge on the northern side. We followed this for some way before descending
almost into Aston-under-Hill.

The walk then really followed a contour line
around the hill going through Grafton, Conderton and Overbury. Grafton is very
pretty and the gardens were alive with bloom. But the best bit was near Beckford
Coppice. Just before entering we saw 5 roe deer capering around a field. In an
odd way the more they ran away from us, the more they curved back round towards
us. Then we entered the coppice, a riot of bluebells. I was very surprised that
they were out yet. As we left the trees we met a woman who told us that we could
see more roe deer. Well we certainly could, about 100 yards away (take out
binoculars) but they showed no inclination to move even when they saw us. There
must have been 25-30 of them. We stopped a while to admire them.

Conderton and Overbury held a different
interest. Cotswolds ston houss, distinctly out of our price range. We then cut
across to Kemerton, pausing to study the behaviour of a male swan towards a
Canada goose that it thought was threatening to take over its territory. The
goose eventually took off to escape and the swan took off in pursuit. I just
wish I could have got this on film. Across more fields to the edge of Bredon
with a long stretch along the road to get back to the cars.

The final walk of the weekend. It was a marked trail from
Crickley Hill country park but it went well outside the park on to proper paths.
we came out of the park and crossed the A417 over Shab Hill and down aldwell
Bottom to Upper Coberley. Go north, cross the A 436 and then up Hartley
Bottom to the scarp edge again. A pleasant amble back along this, taking
time out to look at The Devil's Chimney (this is a stack left by quarreymen, a
bit like the Old Man of Mow)

The path bends away from the scarp and there is a section of
road work by Ullenwood to get back to the edge. You then follow it back to the
park.

The Visitors' Centre describes this as the Leckhampton Walk.
It's about 8.5 miles and we got back just in time to miss the rain.

I had another pass-out and, as there was a
break in my regular Sunday evening commitment, I decided that it was off to
Wales for me, continuing the Hewitt-bagging around Bala. I'd long been putting
off doing the Nuttalls' round taking in Carnedd y Filiast (not to be confused
with its namesake on the Glyders) and Arenig Fach. This offered the prospect of
long, boggy, pathless sections. To make matters worse it was raining on the
drive over.

In fact it turned out to be a lovely day, much
helped by the fact that the sun got brighter and brighter as the day went on.
Yes there were pathless sections but not as much as I feared. The landscape was
open, seemed gloriously remote but still full of interest. There were ever
changing views of Arenig Fawr (a wonderfully complex hill in its shape) and Llyn
Celyn, which was shining in the sunshine, not its usual brooding self.

I parked by the memorial chapel right by the
lake. This is slightly different to the Nuttalls' starting point but, on the
basis that you have to do at least a mile on the road, I was trying to do more
of it at the start. Also, given that there are lots of lay-bys for parking, it
was easier to get a definite fix on this on to help locating the first path off
the road. This takes you up through a short section of forestry. Once this
emerges on to the moor above, the navigation is very easy just following this
track, being careful to fork left at the only point where it splits, all the way
to the summit of Carnedd y Filiast. One part of the route takes you into the
Hesgyn valley; this looks totally uninhabited and packed with heather. Llyn
Hesgyn is really desolate.

Carnedd y Filiast is one of these round-topped
hills but it is made more interesting by a trig station and shelter. I'd been
climbing up the leeward side and was quite surprised by the strength of the wind
on top. The shelter was very handy as I paused for a drink.

You then follow a long section of fence all
the way over to the Gelyn valley but the Nuttalls' route includes a diversion
from the fence on to Llechwedd Llyfn. I thought that this was one of the
Nuttalls that isn't a Hewitt. So I felt quite good about myself for hacking
through heather on to it. I now find it is a Hewitt so I'm doubly pleased. The
Nuttalls say that if you look right over the fence you can see the largest area
of bog and heather in Wales - 25 square miles of it. It is wild and beautiful
but I have to say that it is indistinguishable from the land to the left. It
than struck me; I wasn't walking down the edge of this wilderness, I was walking
through the middle. I'm just glad the fence was there for direction.

You have to leave this friendly
direction-finder when you can see the Gelyn, more particularly its confluence
with the Trinant. You tack across to this (rough, lots of heather, lots of bog
including one spot that I entered up to my knee). However the Trinant looked
lovely in the sunshine and I stopped for lunch by the bank.

There was then nearly an hour and a half of
hard work to get to the top of Arenig Fach. First up the stream. The Nuttalls
say take the left branch; well it wasn't obvious that this was a branch as there
wasn't a lot of water in it. The key is that you keep looking up and aiming just
to the right of the crags guarding the hill. You continue on this line,
deviating slightly here and there to find a more hospitable route through the
heather. You eventually reach the bit of a ridge which looks down on Llyn Arenig
Fach; this is extremely well hidden. At this point the really steep climb starts
but the way is quite well defined. I did however lose it at the point where I
found it had leveled out - this turned out to be a sheep run contouring round
the hill. A little bit of vertical took me on to another well-defined path which
also contoured round. This brought me under a rocky outcrop but I climbed up the
side and was on the summit.

Again I had done the climb in the lee of the
wind. It nearly blew me over when I caught its full blast. Much thanks again for
the summit shelter.

The book says follow the fence line off the
hill back towards Llyn Celyn. What it doesn't say is that the fence is defunct
although most of the posts remain. It plunges steeply off in places and you are
following it through thick heather, never entirely sure where you are putting
your feet. This is tough. However when you divert along another fence line
branching off left the heather gives way to grass and the rest of the path back
to the road is much easier. There isn't a footpath over the final cultivated
section but I found a track across it. Then about a mile back on the road. I'd
come out further from the car than the Nuttalls say but I'd wanted to follow the
fence.

A really enjoyable walk with the Ramblers. The attractive
features were:

itís always
good walking around Dovedale

it
kept threatening to rain and, whilst we did have showers, we had more
good weather than bad. We felt as though weíd cheated the forecast
which was much worse. We also arrived back just before a big downpour
so we felt good about that too. Itís a good job Ron wasnít on the
walk; weíd have spent 10 minutes longer over each refreshmentstop and we would have got soaked in the downpour.

it had a good
number of paths that I canít remember walking before.

We parked at Alstonefield; we did have a discussion on its
spelling as some signs donít have the ďeĒ in the middle) and walked down
to Milldale village. This is on the Dove and features the Viatorís Bridge;
Viator was one of the characters in ďThe Compleat AnglerĒ and Isaak Walton
did much of his fishing in this stretch of the Dove. Then up the Dove to the
part where the valley is named Wolfcotedale at which point we branched off up
Biggindale. Well up the dale there is a path off to Hartington and we followed
that via a mixture of path, road and green lane to Hartington itself. Thepath reaches the village at Hartington Hall which is one of the loveliest
youth hostel buildings I know.

We left the village on the path round the back of the
public toilets (Iíve noticed the path on my frequent visits to use the
facility but I donít think Iíve walked it before) This leads to
Beresforddale which has lovely limestone cliffs on both sides. In some ways we
left this too soon but our route took us southwestwards into Narrowdale. This
lives up to its name to begin with but soon spreads out into a superb bowl,
which benefitted from the bright sunshine as we passed through. We climbed
somewhat and then stopped to enjoy the view of the dale.It was then a short walk back to the road and about half a mile along
that to the cars.

A treat on the way back. Stuart suggested that we stopped
at Eileenís Pantry in Ipstones. Large cups/portions at unpretentious prices.
Itís next to the Londis if you ever fancy stopping.

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